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Caer Redwood
Caer Redwood is a Freehold and the Royal Seat of the Kingdom of Pacifica. Overview Located in a redwood forest near Mill Valley, hidden by a perpetual mist in the midst of giant redwoods, the caer is heavily defended by archers posted on platforms grown into the sides of the trees. The central keep is a single giant redwood stump that has petrified over the centuries, but has been carved out with rooms and hallways by patient boggan and nocker stonemasons. Because of the potential for fire in the forest, no open flame is allowed at Caer Redwood. Instead, visitors collect their own Glamour rushlights: the shells of chimeric glow beetles caught in crystal globes. The lights fluoresce in the natural Glamour of the area, providing light in the dark corridors and tunnels within the caer. It is considered a great honor to dine with Queen Aeron in the crystal lichen chamber, where thousands of crystalline shelf lichen transform every word spoken into a music note of pleasing tone and quality. Queen Aeron's own room is tunneled directly into what would have been the heartwood of the old, incredibly giant redwood stump. Every surface has been polished to an almost mirror-bright sheen. The floor is strewn with pine needles for decoration, aroma, and traction. Reddish, clear-resin cups and plates are the traditional chinaware. Caer Redwood has never been adequately seiged because it is rough and overgrown, in a thickly forested area, and very hard to find in the mists. The now-elite Redwood Archers have made a reputation of themselves by melting out of the greenery and peppering attacking forces with dozens of sharp tooth-arrows before fading back into the trees. Redwood was attacked only one during the Accordance War, and that was by two angry trolls bent on setting it aflame with torches... to little success, for the polished, petrified wood does not so easily catch flame. Courtly life used to be quiet and rustic, filled with cool evenings around the balefire (the only "flame" allowed within) and endless story-circles. Today, though, Aeron has all but retreated to her polished redwood four-poster bed with her love Hamal. Cauldron Pool Caer Redwood is perhaps best known as the home of Cauldron Pool, a natural stone pool said to have once been touched by the Cup of Dreams itself. The Cauldron Pool is said to have both healing and prophesying powers, and any such cantrip attempted in or near the pool or after drinking the water directly from the source gains an additional success. It is said that the queen can heal anyone who immerses themselves in it. The pool is pleasantly warm and bubbles come up from some underwater vent, giving the impression that it is boiling. The Grand Ballroom of Trees The queen holds her dances in the Grand Ballroom of Trees, a great platform secured high above the forest floor by tremendously thick braided root-fibers sealed in resin. The canopy of the forest serves as the roof to her great ballroom, and guest arrive either by being carried up by winged chimera or through the complex pulley-and-counterweight system devised by the queen's nocker Engineer Corps (who also built the ballroom itself... its imperfection is obvious to anyone who discovers that the angles of the supporting trees mean that all four support trees are slowly, inexorably leaning toward each other, one day to fall completely over). A specially carved polished mahogany basket-seat with an elegant carrying handle made of brass is Aeron's preferred method of travel, carried aloft by a giant chimeric war falcon. References # CTD. Immortal Eyes: The Toybox, pp. 37-38. Category:Freeholds (CTD)